We have mentioned that late in 1618 James caused the Scottish Council to send a vessel (the Restore) to the Shetlands to demand the assize-herrings from the Dutchmen, and that it arrived on the scene too late. Next year he resolved to be in time, and while the Dutch ambassadors were still in London he wrote to the Council saying it was necessary “for divers imperative reasons” that the duties should still be craved, and requesting them to send a ship that summer with some discreet person on board, “who in fair terms may require our duties of the said Hollanders and report their answer”; and the Council were desired to take special care that the business should not fail through negligence.[370] At a meeting of the Council at Holyrood House on 29th June, arrangements were made to carry out the king’s wishes. Mr John Fenton was appointed “his Majesty’s commissioner” for “craving his Majesty’s rent of assize and teind from the Hollanders and other strangers fishing in his Majesty’s seas,” and a Mr James Brown was instructed to accompany him as notary.[371] Fenton’s commission, under the great seal, commanded him to repair to the north seas, and there “in his Majesty’s name to ask, crave, receive, intromit with, and uplift from those of Holland, Zealand, Hamburg, Embden, and Rostock, and from all other strangers following the trade of fishing in his Majesty’s said seas this present year, his Majesty’s rent of assize and teind of the whole fishes taken, or to be taken by them in his Majesty’s said seas and waters this present year.” The tribute levied by John Brown, in 1616, on behalf of the Duke of Lennox, amounted to only one angel (about ten shillings) or a barrel of herrings from each buss, or twelve cod from a line-boat. But that claimed by the king was now considerably greater. The “assize” was to be computed at ten thousand herrings (which would be fully ten barrels) for every buss that fished for herrings, and a last of white fish for every buss that fished for white fish, that is to say, cod and ling; or, if the fishermen preferred to pay in money, they were to pay at the rate of £6, 13s. 4d. Scots for every thousand of the assize-herrings, and at the rate of £50 Scots for every last of the assize white fish; and the same equivalents were to be asked for each thousand “teind herrings,” and for each last of “teind white fish,”—a new duty now first mentioned, “teinds” being the Scottish term for ecclesiastical tithes. The value of the assize-herrings to be levied from each buss was thus about £5, 11s. 1d. sterling, and the value of the assize white fish from each dogger about £4, 3s. 4d. On the basis of two thousand Dutch herring vessels the total duty would amount to the respectable sum of about £11,000, while the dogger-boats would yield some £1500 additional. On receiving payment Fenton was to give an “aquittance and discharge,” which would be as valid and sufficient as if given by his Majesty’s comptrollers or ordinary receivers of his Majesty’s rents.[372]
In the particular instructions given to Fenton,[373] and which, there are reasons for thinking, were essentially the same as those previously given to Brown, he was enjoined to proceed to the north seas in H.M.S. Charles, under the command of Captain David Murray, and in the first place to inquire the names of the admirals and vice-admirals of the Dutch fleet, the names of their ships, to what towns and provinces they belonged, and also the number of the convoys and busses sent out to the fishing by every town, province, and state. This having been done, he was “in fair and gentle terms and with modesty and discretion” to demand from the admirals or vice-admirals, and from two or three of the convoyers and busses of each state, “his Majesty’s rent of assize and teind” as specified. He was not to dispute with them as to the amount of the duty. If they offered a smaller amount, “although it were only an angel for every buss,” he was to accept it, but not less; so also if he were offered fish instead of money. It was left to his discretion to make a differential duty according to the size of the busses, if that point was raised, and also to compound with the admiral for the whole of the busses of a town, state, or province. If payment of the duties were refused, Fenton was merely “to take instruments upon the said refusal without further contestation,” and to report the result. He was also to inform the Dutch of the oppressions made by those landing from the fleet at Shetland, and to demand redress and a promise that such conduct would not be repeated.[374]
A short time before this the Council, for the sake of economy, had ordered the Charles to be disfurnished, but now, in view of her important mission, they judged it to be “no ways meet or expedient” that she should be made altogether empty of her furniture and munitions of war, so that she might be able to resist any sudden or secret onslaught by the Hollanders or others. They therefore instructed that there should be left on board “twa of the smallest pecceis of hir ordinance and ten muscattis, with some few bullets ansuerable thairto, and a litill quantitie of poulder, yf ony be within the schip.”[375] Orders were given for the manning of the vessel, which was to be ready to sail before 1st July. It was with this scrimp and penurious armament, and in this attorney-like manner, that James prepared to obtain an acknowledgment from the Dutch of his rights in his seas, whereas Charles I., as we shall see, employed his great ship-money fleet for the same purpose. But apparently the king would be almost as satisfied with a refusal as with the payment of the tribute, either of which he would be able to make use of in the negotiations for the “final treaty” on which he had set his heart. It is therefore unfortunate that we can discover no further information as to the expedition of Fenton. That the Charles left on its mission we know,[376] but the records are silent as to the result. It may perhaps be inferred from this circumstance alone that the Charles was no more successful than the Restore in the year before.
Early in 1620 the States, which had taken no steps to redeem their promise to send another embassy to deal with the question of the herring fishery, were reminded of it, and Carleton urged this course as a point both of policy and honour. But they were as reluctant as ever to handle the matter. The increased duty which Fenton was commanded to ask—of which very probably they had heard—was not likely to make them more willing, and they continued to procrastinate, alleging the unsettled state of their affairs at home and the troubles in Bohemia and Germany as reasons for further delay. Some prominent men in Holland indeed began now to assume a firmer tone. Hints were thrown out to the British ambassador that there was really little difference between forcing on the matter and declaring war, since freedom of fishing was of fundamental importance to the people of the United Provinces. The Prince of Orange gave it as his opinion that the seaport towns of Holland would never be brought to consent to “any innovation” in the herring fishery, even if it were urged at the cannon’s mouth. Still more significant was the action of the States in now voting large additional sums for the equipment of a greater number of men-of-war to guard the herring-busses from molestation.[377]
To all appearance, therefore, the Dutch had now stiffened their backs and were prepared to fight for their liberty to fish on the British coasts, as they had done at Spitzbergen, instead of sending commissioners to London to haggle over it. But their uncompromising attitude was soon modified owing to certain political events, which taught them the need of caution in flouting the wishes of the King of England. In the autumn of 1619, Frederick, the Elector Palatine, who had married Elizabeth, the daughter of James, was offered and accepted the crown of Bohemia under circumstances pregnant with troubles. In consequence of this, Spain, in alliance with the Emperor, attacked and took possession of the Palatinate. The strengthening of the Spanish power in Germany was by itself inimical to the United Provinces, and the sense of danger was intensified when it was found that the occupation of the Lower Palatinate was part of a plan for marching the Catholic troops overland from Lombardy to the Spanish Netherlands. In view of an impending conflict with their hereditary enemies, it became a matter of grave anxiety to the States to retain the goodwill of England. Accordingly, after many discussions, the States-General at the end of 1620 appointed another embassy to go to London; but it was rather with the view of meeting the political dangers with which they were threatened than of dealing effectually with the subjects in dispute. The ambassadors’ official instructions, which were most carefully considered, referred in general terms to the affairs of Germany and the approaching expiry of the truce with Spain, and more particularly to the cloth trade, the coinage, and the East Indies. On the all-important subject of the herring fishery they were mute. In their private instructions the envoys were enjoined to avoid all discussion about it; if pressed, they were to assure the king that the States would be glad to consider it “later”; and in any discussion that did arise, they were to bear in mind that they always had been in undisturbed possession of it, and that the profit they derived from it had been greatly exaggerated and was far less than the king supposed—so little indeed that they would be quite unable to carry it on if any “innovation” were made.[378]
The embassy of six persons arrived in London towards the end of January 1621. At their first audience with the king they spoke only of the affairs in Germany and the seizure of the Palatinate, desiring it to be understood that this was the principal matter to be considered; and when they met the Council they raised the question of a warlike alliance between the two countries against Spain. But the herring fishery had not been forgotten by the English, and when the subject was mooted the Dutch begged that it might be allowed to rest for a time, pleading in particular that the expiry of the truce with Spain would leave them face to face with a powerful foe. The Council reminded them of the promise given, and James bluntly expressed the hope that they had come on this occasion fully empowered to treat of the business of the fishery, which had been suspended at the conferences two years before. While disclaiming any wish to diminish their legitimate profits from the fishery, he warned them that the question touched his honour and sovereignty so closely that it could not be always left undecided and in dispute; and that he would only agree to further delay when he was informed at what time it would suit the States to conclude an agreement both about the fishing on the coasts of Great Britain and at “Greenland.”[379] After many conferences and much negotiation it was arranged that another embassy should be sent by the States before the lapse of a year, and the Dutch commissioners quitted London on 16th April.
In accordance with this understanding, still another embassy came to London, in November 1621. On this occasion the ambassadors were provided with full powers to settle the East Indian disputes, and with less ample authority to deal with the Spitzbergen fishery question. But, astonishing as it appears, they were again sent without any power to negotiate any treaty about the herring fishery. That the States, after so many delays and evasions, in the face of so many protests from the king, should again break their promise, shows both the great importance they attached to the matter and their belief that James would not force on a quarrel about it. In their secret instructions the old injunctions were repeated. They were to beg that as a year had not yet elapsed a little further delay might be granted; laying stress on the danger to the Protestant cause, in view of the relations with Spain, if anything were done to lessen the sea-power of the Netherlands, which depended so much on their fisheries. At this time the East Indian question had become important and pressing in England, and the early conferences were confined to it. But later the king broached the subject of the herring-fishing; and after listening to the ambassadors for a while, he peevishly asked them to make an end of their long harangue, called them leeches and blood-suckers, who sucked the blood from his subjects and tried to ruin him,[380] and then treated them to the same sort of disquisition as on former occasions. To the king’s railing and reproaches the ambassadors made such answer as they could, and the upshot was that they were allowed to go on with the conferences on the East Indian question. This embassy, at the head of which was François Van Aerssen, Lord of Sommelsdijck, remained in England until the spring of 1623, engaged in negotiations, often interrupted, on political affairs, and on the East Indian and Greenland fishery questions. James did not harass them further about the herring fishery. At the farewell audience he spoke of it in a good-natured way. He must, he said, resume his old song, veterem cantilenam, but not at that time. But whenever the condition of the Netherlands was favourable, he would, he said, be glad to resume the negotiations.[381]
During their long stay in England the ambassadors had an opportunity of learning what was thought about the fishery question. On their return to the Netherlands they earnestly counselled the States-General to come to some agreement with England both on the herring fishery on the British coasts and the whale-fishing at Spitzbergen. These matters, they said, were close to the king’s heart, and many people whom they had met had shown much irritation in speaking of them, and had even advised forcible measures against the Dutch. By this time the Republic was again at war with Spain, while Prince Charles and Buckingham had gone to Madrid to woo the Infanta: it would be prudent to do all that could reasonably be done to cultivate good relations with England. The States therefore wrote to Sir Noel Caron telling him they had resolved to take the fishery matter into serious consideration, and their efforts were directed to the removal of all cause of complaint in Scotland. Two edicts had already been issued—one, in 1618, prohibiting any wrong from being committed on Scottish subjects; the other, in 1620, ordering their fishermen to refrain from taking herrings within the rocks and reefs of Shetland, Ireland, and Norway, on the ground that such herrings were inferior in quality and unfit for curing.[382] The technical reason given in the latter for keeping away from the coast had some foundation, but the real motive was probably to redeem the pledge which the States had given in the year before ([see p. 193]). What the States now did was to renew the edict of 1618, and, after a conference between the ambassadors who had returned from England and the College or Board of Fisheries, to issue orders that the herring-busses were not to go too near the coast of Scotland, which had, indeed, been agreed upon some years earlier, so as to avoid causing inconvenience to the native fishermen.[383]
There is evidence that the warning which the ambassadors gave to the States-General as to the feeling in England was well founded, and there occurred at this time, both in England and Scotland, a revival of proposals aimed against the Hollanders. The Scottish burghs complained of the “heavie hurt” they sustained owing to the English and the “Fleymings,” who had lately taken up the “trade of fishing” in the North and West Isles, by which was probably meant the curing of herrings and other fish. The Council accordingly ordained that the Islesmen should “suffer no strangers to come within their bounds to the fishing,” and that none of the country people should sell fish to them; and they issued a proclamation forbidding “all and sundry strangers” to “slay or take any fish within the Isles, lochs and bays of the kingdom, and that they buy no fish but salted and barrelled, and at free burghs.”[384]
In England fresh attempts were made to establish a great national herring fishery which might rival that of the Dutch. Within a month of the departure of the ambassadors, Lord George Carew, Master of the Ordnance, was busy with a project. Along with Lord Hervey and Sir William Monson—who was perhaps the prime mover in the matter—he had several conferences with “skilful fishermen,” and then he sent for the city merchants to consider how the scheme might be floated. To them he proposed that six busses and four doggers should be bought or built at a cost not exceeding £10,000, explaining, after the usual manner, how the return from the first year’s fishing would repay the whole of that sum and encourage “all men” to adventure. The city merchants, one of whom was Sir William Cockaine, were loud in their praises of the scheme,—“it was the best work for the public and the most profitable that the wit of man could imagine,”—but as for the money required, they were afraid that it could not be raised. Then the promoters asked the Lord Mayor to propound the plan to the Court of Aldermen. But the Lord Mayor curtly replied that the Aldermen were engaged in other adventures, and were “utterly unwilling” to enter into the project of building busses, while the Merchant Companies were too much in debt to undertake it. On a second appeal being made to him, he said the Court of Aldermen “absolutely declined” to entertain either the general project for fishing-busses or the lesser scheme of building six busses and four doggers. They would have nothing to do with it;[385] and this scheme was therefore nipped in the bud.